Proof of new age in film
The film Magnolia is further proof - in this magnificent year at the movies - that cinema is starting to re-invent itself. It's as if, staring down the chasm of 'event movies' with one-line pitches, Hollywood has finally begun to swerve away in distaste.
The signs of the revolution are small, but they're still there. Magnolia is not the first movie this year to defy a one-line - or even one-paragraph - synopsis. It's not the first to come in at over three hours (wrapping at 188 minutes). And hopefully it won't be the last to be breathtakingly audacious and original in its scope.
Along with Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich), or David O'Russell (Three Kings, Magnolia), young director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights) appears not to have read the rule book - or if he has, he's done an excellent job of shredding it. This is what being young and making cinema is all about: it's about as far away as you could possibly desire from the MTV jump-cut world of Michael Bay and his commercially cynical cohorts.
And how Anderson dares to conclude this film is revolutionary enough to produce audible gasps in the cinema; you may think it's ridiculous, but don't say the finale wasn't signposted from the start.
Magnolia is an ensemble piece - Tom Cruise's Oscar-nominated turn as sex guru Frank T J Mackey is just the flashiest part in a large cast of interconnected characters (and an excellent piece of work). He's the estranged son of dying TV executive Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), nursed by the standout Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and married to money-grubbing, pill-popping Linda (Julianne Moore). T J's sexual self-help conventions are a sight to behold ('worship the cock,' he exhorts), but they're not the only thing of note in this no-holds-barred film.
Director Anderson has decided to take a huge jump into a land of extreme personalities and relies on operatic coincidence to bring his story home. It's certainly daring. There are no minor characters in Magnolia. There's the sad-eyed and desperate former TV star Donnie Smith (William H Macy), a gentle giant of a cop (John C Reilly), a damaged cocaine addict (Melora Waters), herself the daughter of an ailing game-show host (Philip Baker Hall), and a browbeating father (Michael Bowen) who seems intent on repeating the Donnie Smith scenario with his genius son (Jeremy Blackman).
But - and here's the wonder of Magnolia - each character comes fully formed, each is fascinatingly ragged: some are self-destructive, some exist to give care, others are on hand to take it. There are meltdowns, rescue missions, confessions, attempted suicides, and a death-bed scene which is shocking in its rawness. Every actor is excellent. It's all scored to insistent, wonderful music and finally, as if all the above wasn't quite enough to pack into a single film, there's a celestial intervention, no less. Somehow, 188 minutes doesn't seem quite long enough.
Not everyone will want to surrender three hours to Anderson's untrammelled vision - and Magnolia may prove too much for more conventional tastes - but it's a joy to see films like this finally being made. It has been a very rich year so far at the cinema; an unusual time where it's difficult to see everything that's screaming for your deserved attention.
Put Magnolia at the top of the list: these characters will swirl in and out of your consciousness for days on end. And that conclusion? You'll still be stunned long after the credits roll. You'll feel compelled to talk about it - but don't give it away.
Magnolia begins April 6
